<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en-us">
  <head>

    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
    
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Collecting Elasticsearch log data with Filebeat | Elasticsearch Guide [7.7] | Elastic</title>
<link rel="home" href="index.html" title="Elasticsearch Guide [7.7]">
<link rel="up" href="monitor-elasticsearch-cluster.html" title="Monitor a cluster">
<link rel="prev" href="configuring-metricbeat.html" title="Collecting Elasticsearch monitoring data with Metricbeat">
<link rel="next" href="config-monitoring-indices.html" title="Configuring indices for monitoring">
<meta name="DC.type" content="Learn/Docs/Elasticsearch/Reference/7.7">
<meta name="DC.subject" content="Elasticsearch">
<meta name="DC.identifier" content="7.7">
<meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <script src="https://cdn.optimizely.com/js/18132920325.js"></script>
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="57x57" href="/apple-icon-57x57.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="60x60" href="/apple-icon-60x60.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="72x72" href="/apple-icon-72x72.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="76x76" href="/apple-icon-76x76.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="114x114" href="/apple-icon-114x114.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="120x120" href="/apple-icon-120x120.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="144x144" href="/apple-icon-144x144.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="152x152" href="/apple-icon-152x152.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="/apple-icon-180x180.png">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/android-chrome-192x192.png" sizes="192x192">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96">
    <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16">
    <link rel="manifest" href="/manifest.json">
    <meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-title" content="Elastic">
    <meta name="application-name" content="Elastic">
    <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#ffffff">
    <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="/mstile-144x144.png">
    <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff">
    <meta name="naver-site-verification" content="936882c1853b701b3cef3721758d80535413dbfd">
    <meta name="yandex-verification" content="d8a47e95d0972434">
    <meta name="localized" content="true">
    <meta name="st:robots" content="follow,index">
    <meta property="og:image" content="https://www.elastic.co/static/images/elastic-logo-200.png">
    <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
    <link rel="icon" href="/favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="64x64" href="/favicon_64x64_16bit.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="32x32" href="/favicon_32x32.png">
    <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="16x16" href="/favicon_16x16.png">
    <!-- Give IE8 a fighting chance -->
    <!--[if lt IE 9]>
    <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/html5shiv/3.7.2/html5shiv.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/respond/1.4.2/respond.min.js"></script>
    <![endif]-->
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/guide/static/styles.css">
  </head>

  <!--© 2015-2021 Elasticsearch B.V. Copying, publishing and/or distributing without written permission is strictly prohibited.-->

  <body>
    <!-- Google Tag Manager -->
    <script>dataLayer = [];</script><noscript><iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-58RLH5" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>
    <script>(function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start': new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src= '//www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f); })(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-58RLH5');</script>
    <!-- End Google Tag Manager -->

    <!-- Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics -->
    <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-12395217-16"></script>
    <script>
      window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config', 'UA-12395217-16');
    </script>

    <!--BEGIN QUALTRICS WEBSITE FEEDBACK SNIPPET-->
    <script type="text/javascript">
      (function(){var g=function(e,h,f,g){
      this.get=function(a){for(var a=a+"=",c=document.cookie.split(";"),b=0,e=c.length;b<e;b++){for(var d=c[b];" "==d.charAt(0);)d=d.substring(1,d.length);if(0==d.indexOf(a))return d.substring(a.length,d.length)}return null};
      this.set=function(a,c){var b="",b=new Date;b.setTime(b.getTime()+6048E5);b="; expires="+b.toGMTString();document.cookie=a+"="+c+b+"; path=/; "};
      this.check=function(){var a=this.get(f);if(a)a=a.split(":");else if(100!=e)"v"==h&&(e=Math.random()>=e/100?0:100),a=[h,e,0],this.set(f,a.join(":"));else return!0;var c=a[1];if(100==c)return!0;switch(a[0]){case "v":return!1;case "r":return c=a[2]%Math.floor(100/c),a[2]++,this.set(f,a.join(":")),!c}return!0};
      this.go=function(){if(this.check()){var a=document.createElement("script");a.type="text/javascript";a.src=g;document.body&&document.body.appendChild(a)}};
      this.start=function(){var a=this;window.addEventListener?window.addEventListener("load",function(){a.go()},!1):window.attachEvent&&window.attachEvent("onload",function(){a.go()})}};
      try{(new g(100,"r","QSI_S_ZN_emkP0oSe9Qrn7kF","https://znemkp0ose9qrn7kf-elastic.siteintercept.qualtrics.com/WRSiteInterceptEngine/?Q_ZID=ZN_emkP0oSe9Qrn7kF")).start()}catch(i){}})();
    </script><div id="ZN_emkP0oSe9Qrn7kF"><!--DO NOT REMOVE-CONTENTS PLACED HERE--></div>
    <!--END WEBSITE FEEDBACK SNIPPET-->

    <div id="elastic-nav" style="display:none;"></div>
    <script src="https://www.elastic.co/elastic-nav.js"></script>

    <!-- Subnav -->
    <div>
      <div>
        <div class="tertiary-nav d-none d-md-block">
          <div class="container">
            <div class="p-t-b-15 d-flex justify-content-between nav-container">
              <div class="breadcrum-wrapper"><span><a href="/guide/" style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: 600; color: #000;">Docs</a></span></div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>

    <div class="main-container">
      <section id="content">
        <div class="content-wrapper">

          <section id="guide" lang="en">
            <div class="container">
              <div class="row">
                <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-8 col-md-8 guide-section">
                  <!-- start body -->
                  <div class="page_header">
<strong>IMPORTANT</strong>: No additional bug fixes or documentation updates
will be released for this version. For the latest information, see the
<a href="../current/index.html">current release documentation</a>.
</div>
<div id="content">
<div class="breadcrumbs">
<span class="breadcrumb-link"><a href="index.html">Elasticsearch Guide [7.7]</a></span>
»
<span class="breadcrumb-link"><a href="monitor-elasticsearch-cluster.html">Monitor a cluster</a></span>
»
<span class="breadcrumb-node">Collecting Elasticsearch log data with Filebeat</span>
</div>
<div class="navheader">
<span class="prev">
<a href="configuring-metricbeat.html">« Collecting Elasticsearch monitoring data with Metricbeat</a>
</span>
<span class="next">
<a href="config-monitoring-indices.html">Configuring indices for monitoring »</a>
</span>
</div>
<div class="chapter xpack">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div>
<h2 class="title">
<a id="configuring-filebeat"></a>Collecting Elasticsearch log data with Filebeat<a class="edit_me edit_me_private" rel="nofollow" title="Editing on GitHub is available to Elastic" href="https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch/edit/7.7/docs/reference/monitoring/configuring-filebeat.asciidoc">edit</a><a class="xpack_tag" href="/subscriptions"></a>
</h2>
</div></div></div>

<p>You can use Filebeat to monitor the Elasticsearch log files, collect log events, and
ship them to the monitoring cluster. Your recent logs are visible on the
<span class="strong strong"><strong>Monitoring</strong></span> page in Kibana.</p>
<div class="olist orderedlist">
<ol class="orderedlist">
<li class="listitem">
<p>Verify that Elasticsearch is running and that the monitoring cluster is ready to
receive data from Filebeat.</p>
<div class="tip admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>In production environments, we strongly recommend using a separate cluster
(referred to as the <em>monitoring cluster</em>) to store the data. Using a separate
monitoring cluster prevents production cluster outages from impacting your
ability to access your monitoring data. It also prevents monitoring activities
from impacting the performance of your production cluster. See
<a class="xref" href="monitoring-production.html" title="Monitoring in a production environment"><em>Monitoring in a production environment</em></a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Enable the collection of monitoring data on your cluster.</p>
<p>Set <code class="literal">xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled</code> to <code class="literal">true</code> on the
production cluster. By default, it is is disabled (<code class="literal">false</code>).</p>
<p>You can use the following APIs to review and change this setting:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-console">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-console">GET _cluster/settings

PUT _cluster/settings
{
  "persistent": {
    "xpack.monitoring.collection.enabled": true
  }
}</pre>
</div>
<div class="console_widget" data-snippet="snippets/1142.console"></div>
<p>If Elasticsearch security features are enabled, you must have <code class="literal">monitor</code> cluster privileges to
view the cluster settings and <code class="literal">manage</code> cluster privileges to change them.</p>
<p>For more information, see <a class="xref" href="monitoring-settings.html" title="Monitoring settings in Elasticsearch">Monitoring settings</a> and <a class="xref" href="cluster-update-settings.html" title="Cluster update settings API">Cluster update settings</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Identify which logs you want to monitor.</p>
<p>The Filebeat Elasticsearch module can handle
<a class="xref" href="audit-log-output.html" title="Logfile audit output">audit logs</a>,
<a class="xref" href="logging.html#deprecation-logging" title="Deprecation logging">deprecation logs</a>,
<a class="xref" href="gc-logging.html" title="GC logging">gc logs</a>, <a class="xref" href="logging.html" title="Logging configuration">server logs</a>, and
<a class="xref" href="index-modules-slowlog.html" title="Slow Log">slow logs</a>.
For more information about the location of your Elasticsearch logs, see the
<a class="xref" href="path-settings.html" title="path.data and path.logs">path.logs</a> setting.</p>
<div class="important admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>If there are both structured (<code class="literal">*.json</code>) and unstructured (plain text)
versions of the logs, you must use the structured logs. Otherwise, they might
not appear in the appropriate context in Kibana.</p>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/filebeat-installation.html" class="ulink" target="_top">Install Filebeat</a> on the Elasticsearch
nodes that contain logs that you want to monitor.
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Identify where to send the log data.</p>
<p>For example, specify Elasticsearch output information for your monitoring cluster in
the Filebeat configuration file (<code class="literal">filebeat.yml</code>):</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-yaml">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-yaml">output.elasticsearch:
  # Array of hosts to connect to.
  hosts: ["http://es-mon-1:9200", "http://es-mon2:9200"] <a id="CO439-1"></a><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i>

  # Optional protocol and basic auth credentials.
  #protocol: "https"
  #username: "elastic"
  #password: "changeme"</pre>
</div>
<div class="calloutlist">
<table border="0" summary="Callout list">
<tr>
<td align="left" valign="top" width="5%">
<p><a href="#CO439-1"><i class="conum" data-value="1"></i></a></p>
</td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p>In this example, the data is stored on a monitoring cluster with nodes
<code class="literal">es-mon-1</code> and <code class="literal">es-mon-2</code>.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<p>If you configured the monitoring cluster to use encrypted communications, you
must access it via HTTPS. For example, use a <code class="literal">hosts</code> setting like
<code class="literal">https://es-mon-1:9200</code>.</p>
<div class="important admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>The Elasticsearch monitoring features use ingest pipelines, therefore the
cluster that stores the monitoring data must have at least one
<a class="xref" href="ingest.html" title="Ingest node">ingest node</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>If Elasticsearch security features are enabled on the monitoring cluster, you must
provide a valid user ID and password so that Filebeat can send metrics
successfully.</p>
<p>For more information about these configuration options, see
<a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/elasticsearch-output.html" class="ulink" target="_top">Configure the Elasticsearch output</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Optional: Identify where to visualize the data.</p>
<p>Filebeat provides example Kibana dashboards, visualizations and searches. To
load the dashboards into the appropriate Kibana instance, specify the
<code class="literal">setup.kibana</code> information in the Filebeat configuration file
(<code class="literal">filebeat.yml</code>) on each node:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-yaml">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-yaml">setup.kibana:
  host: "localhost:5601"
  #username: "my_kibana_user"
  #password: "YOUR_PASSWORD"</pre>
</div>
<div class="tip admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>In production environments, we strongly recommend using a dedicated Kibana
instance for your monitoring cluster.</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>If security features are enabled, you must provide a valid user ID and
password so that Filebeat can connect to Kibana:</p>
<div class="olist orderedlist">
<ol class="orderedlist">
<li class="listitem">
Create a user on the monitoring cluster that has the
<a class="xref" href="built-in-roles.html" title="Built-in roles"><code class="literal">kibana_admin</code> built-in role</a> or equivalent
privileges.
</li>
<li class="listitem">
Add the <code class="literal">username</code> and <code class="literal">password</code> settings to the Elasticsearch output information in
the Filebeat configuration file. The example shows a hard-coded password, but
you should store sensitive values in the
<a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/keystore.html" class="ulink" target="_top">secrets keystore</a>.
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p>See <a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/setup-kibana-endpoint.html" class="ulink" target="_top">Configure the Kibana endpoint</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Enable the Elasticsearch module and set up the initial Filebeat environment on each
node.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<div class="pre_wrapper lang-sh">
<pre class="programlisting prettyprint lang-sh">filebeat modules enable elasticsearch
filebeat setup -e</pre>
</div>
<p>For more information, see
<a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/filebeat-module-elasticsearch.html" class="ulink" target="_top">Elasticsearch module</a>.</p>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Configure the Elasticsearch module in Filebeat on each node.</p>
<p>If the logs that you want to monitor aren’t in the default location, set the
appropriate path variables in the <code class="literal">modules.d/elasticsearch.yml</code> file. See
<a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/filebeat-module-elasticsearch.html#configuring-elasticsearch-module" class="ulink" target="_top">Configure the Elasticsearch module</a>.</p>
<div class="important admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>If there are JSON logs, configure the <code class="literal">var.paths</code> settings to point
to them instead of the plain text logs.</p>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p><a href="/guide/en/beats/filebeat/7.7/filebeat-starting.html" class="ulink" target="_top">Start Filebeat</a> on each node.</p>
<div class="note admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>Depending on how you’ve installed Filebeat, you might see errors related
to file ownership or permissions when you try to run Filebeat modules. See
<a href="/guide/en/beats/libbeat/7.7/config-file-permissions.html" class="ulink" target="_top">Config file ownership and permissions</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<p>Check whether the appropriate indices exist on the monitoring cluster.</p>
<p>For example, use the <a class="xref" href="cat-indices.html" title="cat indices API">cat indices</a> command to verify
that there are new <code class="literal">filebeat-*</code> indices.</p>
<div class="tip admon">
<div class="icon"></div>
<div class="admon_content">
<p>If you want to use the <span class="strong strong"><strong>Monitoring</strong></span> UI in Kibana, there must also be
<code class="literal">.monitoring-*</code> indices. Those indices are generated when you collect metrics
about Elastic Stack products. For example, see <a class="xref" href="configuring-metricbeat.html" title="Collecting Elasticsearch monitoring data with Metricbeat"><em>Collecting monitoring data with Metricbeat</em></a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a href="/guide/en/kibana/7.7/monitoring-data.html" class="ulink" target="_top">View the monitoring data in Kibana</a>.
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div class="navfooter">
<span class="prev">
<a href="configuring-metricbeat.html">« Collecting Elasticsearch monitoring data with Metricbeat</a>
</span>
<span class="next">
<a href="config-monitoring-indices.html">Configuring indices for monitoring »</a>
</span>
</div>
</div>

                  <!-- end body -->
                </div>
                <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-4 col-md-4" id="right_col">
                  <div id="rtpcontainer" style="display: block;">
                    <div class="mktg-promo">
                      <h3>Most Popular</h3>
                      <ul class="icons">
                        <li class="icon-elasticsearch-white"><a href="https://www.elastic.co/webinars/getting-started-elasticsearch?baymax=default&amp;elektra=docs&amp;storm=top-video">Get Started with Elasticsearch: Video</a></li>
                        <li class="icon-kibana-white"><a href="https://www.elastic.co/webinars/getting-started-kibana?baymax=default&amp;elektra=docs&amp;storm=top-video">Intro to Kibana: Video</a></li>
                        <li class="icon-logstash-white"><a href="https://www.elastic.co/webinars/introduction-elk-stack?baymax=default&amp;elektra=docs&amp;storm=top-video">ELK for Logs &amp; Metrics: Video</a></li>
                      </ul>
                    </div>
                  </div>
                </div>
              </div>
            </div>
          </section>

        </div>


<div id="elastic-footer"></div>
<script src="https://www.elastic.co/elastic-footer.js"></script>
<!-- Footer Section end-->

      </section>
    </div>

<script src="/guide/static/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/guide/static/docs.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  window.initial_state = {}</script>
  </body>
</html>
